


Smart Cookie

by APortableBanquet (peregrinefalcon)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Baking, Clueless Sherlock, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff and Crack, Happy Sheriarty Day to everyone!, I will fix it someday when I have time!, Jim is no better, M/M, Moriarty is Alive, Post-Reichenbach, a little bit of blood but it's not terrible, how does an oven work, in my defense I wrote it between the hours of 3 AM and 11 AM, slightly OOC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:58:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6747481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peregrinefalcon/pseuds/APortableBanquet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BAKING IS HARD, OKAY?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smart Cookie

**Author's Note:**

> Jim and Sherlock bake cookies!
> 
>  
> 
> This may or may not have been inspired by my own (eventually successful! ... eventually) efforts to bake cookies.

Sherlock Holmes shut the door behind him after a particularly frustrating day in the city.

 

First of all, the weather was far from ideal; it was raining, however that was not much of an issue, as Sherlock had brought his umbrella. It was rather that bumbling fool in a car who had splashed him while he was inspecting the marks on a post bin.

 

Which turned out to be tedious, as the sidewalk was not terribly wide, and the passersby would bump into him at times whilst he was making minute observations. They’d then look at him strangely, as if it had been _his_ fault that they weren’t looking and bumped into him.

 

The information he found was intriguing, but not as incriminating as he had hoped for. He lifted a set of prints off of the post bin that _definitely_ belonged to the barista’s brother-in-law, however when he took it to the lab and ran a chemical analysis over it, he did not find any trace of the hair cream that he was hoping to find.

 

Thus it could not be established that he had committed the theft the day of the brunch, as he was clearly wearing hair product in the photograph that the barista had forwarded him earlier that morning. While it was true that he could have just washed it off after returning home from said brunch, there was no eyewitness to testify that this had indeed been the case, since the barista’s sister had not yet returned to the flat, and by the time she did he had already gone with all the goods.

 

Of course he knew the barista’s brother-in-law had done it. The man was currently sitting in an undisclosed storage unit that he had prepared just for this purpose. The brother-in-law confessed to all the crimes he committed immediately after Sherlock fished him out of the River Thames, however Sherlock would not let him turn himself in yet as the puzzle had yet to be completed.

 

He’d have to find some other trail to follow.

 

Which is precisely why he returned home. He needed to ask Jim for suggestions.

 

Sherlock hung his coat on the wall and frowned at the muddy patch at the hem where he was splashed. He walked into the living room whilst undoing his scarf, and then threw it on his armchair when he got there.

 

Surprisingly, Jim wasn’t there.

 

Sherlock considered the options. It could be possible that he was just at a consultation, however he never really has those, as he prefers to work from home if possible.

 

He could also be working in the library, but he had just gone yesterday. He would have already gotten everything he needed … and judging by the state of the coffee table, he did.

 

Could it be that he had gotten bored, and decided to take on the case of the barista’s brother-in-law as a race with Sherlock? If that was the case, then Sherlock’s already behind …

 

Suddenly, the door downstairs opened. Sherlock heard Mrs. Hudson’s voice gush over something, and Jim offer some explanation. So he had gone out, but where to …?

 

Two sets of footsteps could be heard leading to the flat’s door. So both Jim and Mrs. Hudson were currently making their way up. What on Earth-

 

The doorknob clicked and the door swung open. “Mrs. Hudson told me that you were already home,” Jim greeted Sherlock. His arms were full of boxes of … bowls? Trays? “I had hoped to beat you back, give you a little surprise.”

 

“Well, this is surely a surprise,” Sherlock eyed the boxes that Jim carried into the _kitchen_ , and the plastic bags that hung from Mrs. Hudson’s hands as she followed Jim into the kitchen. Was this all part of some experiment …?

 

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”

 

“Not at all, dear. You boys have fun!”

 

Mrs. Hudson smiled at Sherlock as she left the flat. Sherlock was not entirely sure if he enjoyed that smile.

 

“How has your day been, love?” Jim asked as he followed her to the door in order to hang up his coat next to Sherlock’s. “Ah, not well, I take it,” he answered his own question upon seeing the muddy stain on Sherlock’s coat. “Never-mind it, dear, I’ll have Sebastian take it to the cleaner’s tomorrow. I needed to get a wood glue stain out of my Fendi suit anyway …”

 

Sherlock walked into a kitchen and began inspecting the plastic bags. He heard Jim take off his tie and toss it onto Sherlock’s armchair. Inside the bags were … _flour_? _Hazelnuts_?? _Dark sugar_???

 

“Jim, what is the meaning of this?”

 

He looked behind his shoulder. Jim was leaning casually against the kitchen’s door frame, but in a way that clearly indicated that he wanted something. His hands were crossed in front of his chest instead of stuffed in his pockets, and his head as not leaning against the frame.

 

“Well, I was watching television the other day-” “I honestly don’t know why you bother with that contrivance-” “-says the person who watches _Bones_ religiously-” “-only to convince John that that is _not_ the way we do things!”

 

Jim looked at him disbelievingly. “Yeah, right. Anyway, I was saying, I was watching television, and Gordon Ramsay happened to come up. Yeah, you know, the angry blonde chef? Yeah. And he said something along the lines of, ‘don’t waste money on therapy, sort out your anger management issues with baking?’ And I thought that made quite some sense, and thought we should try it out-”

 

“... How does that make _any_ sense?”

 

“Well, you see, baking is quite a labour-intensive process that involves beating up a lot of materials in a bowl until it’s so thoroughly throttled that you can put it under a heat source and cook it and feast yourself upon its remains.”

 

Sherlock considered that idea, and then nodded. “Fair enough. But speak for yourself; I do _not_ have any anger management issues.” He defended himself, angrily.

 

“Why don’t you go ask the wall if that’s true, honey?”

 

“Says the person who threatens to flay their assistants.”

 

“Well, they deserve it.”

 

“So does the wall.”

 

“What has the _wall_ ever done to _you_?”

 

Sherlock waved Jim off as he walked out of the kitchen. “Anyway, don’t expect me to aid you in this little experiment to see if there’s any veracity in this celebrity’s statements.” Jim stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Come on, Sherlock. It’ll be fun! Besides, we need to bring something to John and Mary’s dinner tomorrow …”

 

“Can’t we just buy them a cake from the shop?”

 

“That’d be terribly rude.”

 

“I think they’ll understand.”

 

Jim considered the thought. “Yes, I suppose so. But something homemade is just so much better!”

 

“I want no part of this.”

 

“Wait.”

 

“What?”

 

“Why are you home so early? It’s barely three in the afternoon.” Jim gave Sherlock a look-over and must have noticed the way his hair was messier than usual, because he was ruffling at it in frustration since he didn’t know which clue to look for next. “Wait … did you want to ask me something?”

 

Sherlock did not like the smile on Jim’s face. “Yes, I suppose so …” He furrowed his brows and frowned.

 

“Excellent!” Jim slapped Sherlock’s shoulder in an excellent mood. “I’ll only answer your question after you’ve helped me with this, then!”

 

Sherlock opened his mouth to protest, but he knew that when Jim sets his mind on something, there is _no way_ he could possibly be dissuaded from doing it.

 

Jim uncrossed his arms and reached for Sherlock’s hand in triumph. Taking Sherlock by the hand, he dragged him back into the kitchen. “You see, dear, I’ve gone to the shop and gotten everything we’d need … I thought we’d make biscuits … I initially thought bread would have been a good idea, but I decided that I don’t have the patience to wait for the yeast to proof, so I went and decided to make biscuits instead … and you know that I’m not one for conformity, so I didn’t want to make _ordinary_ biscuits like chocolate chip cookies, or _God_ forbid, raisin oatmeal … I found this recipe for Danish honey and spice biscuits that looks quite nice, and maybe a little challenging so it’d be fun for us to try …”

 

“Yeah, okay, sounds good,” Sherlock replied dejectedly, having already accepted his fate, and began to unbox the bowls that Jim had bought. Jim beamed at Sherlock as he went into the fridge to find the butter, which was one of the few foodstuffs that were always in 221B, since they had to make their own toast at 4 in the morning when all the shops outside were closed.

 

Sherlock unboxed a measuring cup and eyed it uncertainly. “But Jim, we already have measuring equipment?”

 

“If you think I’m going to let you use that beaker that you used to fill with _larval mass from decomposing corpses_ , well, I’m not.”

 

“I use that beaker for coffee all the time.”

 

“God, I am never kissing you again.” Jim shivered in disgust. “But … how does that _taste_?”

 

Sherlock shrugged. “Surprisingly okay.”

 

“You are _so_ gross.” Jim put the butter on the table, and took out a piece of paper from his breast pocket. “Okay, let’s see … Sherlock, honey, could you preheat the oven to 190 degrees?”

 

“I don’t know how to turn on the oven,” Sherlock confessed as he looked the oven’s myriad of buttons.

 

“... Neither do I,” Jim answered after a long pause.

 

Sherlock walked out of the kitchen. “I’ll go ask Mrs. Hudson.”

 

“Right.” Jim looked at the butter, flour, sugar, spices, honey, and hazelnuts on the table with a mix of sudden defeat and disillusionment.

 

Sherlock walked back into the kitchen. “You know, maybe we should try and figure it out before asking Mrs. Hudson for help. I’m a consulting detective, so I should be able to figure it out somehow anyway,” he reasoned.

 

“... And you also don’t have to tell Mrs. Hudson that you don’t know how to operate an oven.”

 

Sherlock felt his face redden. “Yes, that too.”

 

Jim smiled at him knowingly, and shrugged off his jacket, which he draped across a chair. As he bent over the oven to inspect the buttons, Sherlock did the same with his jacket.

 

“Well, there’s no button that says ‘preheat’ on this thing,” Jim observed.

 

Sherlock rubbed his chin. “Well, you can look at the finger oil deposits to figure out what the people who lived here before us pressed when they used this thing.”

 

“Yes, but you can see that the buttons are all clean with streak marks - I think Mrs. Hudson cleaned and wiped them before you moved in.” Jim pointed at the buttons, which were indeed shiny yet streaky.

 

“Damn it,” Sherlock cursed as he looked to find more buttons. If only Mrs. Hudson weren’t such a good housekeeper …

 

Jim pressed at the buttons pointing up and down, and nothing happened. “Aha!” He uttered triumphantly as he located a small “on” button at the far right of the oven, and pressed it. The only thing that happened was that a small light switched on inside the oven. “Well, that’s not it …” he frowned and drew his brows together.

 

“Do you reckon that there’s a difference between ‘broil’ and ‘bake?’”

 

“Well, if there’s two separate buttons, I suppose so,” Jim reasoned.

 

“Is broil just another word for preheat?”

 

“I don’t think so,” Jim contemplated, “Since they often served broiled steaks, chicken breasts, those sort of things, at restaurants …”

 

“Maybe they just don’t want to say preheated chicken.”

 

“Yeah, I wouldn’t blame them.”

 

Sherlock reached over to press the button, but Jim grabbed his wrist. “Better to check with Google first.”

 

Jim took out his phone and typed into the search engine. “There you go! Hmm … Google says that to broil is to ‘cook meat or fish by exposure to direct, intense radiant heat.’”

 

“Sounds a lot like baking to me.”

 

“Hold on.” Jim keyed in “broil vs bake.” “Huh … apparently to broil is literally to have one source of intense heat, whereas to bake is to cook more evenly and gently.”

 

“I suppose we should press the ‘bake’ button and see what happens.”

 

“Yes, that sounds like a good idea.”

 

Sherlock pressed the button, and the oven began to flash with a series of red dashes and beep. “That worked,” he concluded. “What do we do now?”

 

“Press the numbers,” Jim suggested. “We want it at 190 degrees.”

 

Sherlock pressed “1,” “9,” and “0.” The numbers beeped as they replaced the dashes on the display. “Did it. What do we do now?”

 

They both stared at the machine. There was no “enter” key on the oven like there was one on a computer.

 

“I’ll go ask Mrs. Hudson.” Jim turned away from the oven in defeat and walked out the kitchen. Sherlock could hear his feet descending down the staircase and disappear, and for a moment it struck him how acutely he felt the lack of Jim’s presence. It was difficult to believe that for most of Sherlock’s life, he lived without Jim. Sure, he was somewhat aware of Jim’s existence, but he had never crossed paths with Jim, never seen him, never talked to him, never touched him … and of course never lived with him. Now it was strange to think of living here at 221B, without Jim, even though Jim had only recently become a new presence in the flat …

 

“You boys really do not know how to use the oven?” Sherlock could hear Mrs. Hudson’s disbelief through the walls as she climbed up to the flat with Jim. “We don’t eat at home that frequently,” Jim defended, “And when we do, we use the stove …”

 

The door clicked open and Sherlock could hear the clacking of Mrs. Hudson’s shoes more clearly now. She made her way to the kitchen, where Sherlock was sitting on the tiled floor, looking at the oven in puzzlement as it continued to flash at him.

 

Mrs. Hudson walked over and looked at the oven. “Why, you’ve got it right!” She gestured at the number. “All you have to do is to preheat it!” Jim looked at her in total confusion. She rolled her eyes at them and hit the “bake” button.

 

The oven beeped again and the display dropped to a much lower heat.

 

“It’ll beep again when it’s at 190 degrees,” Mrs. Hudson explained.

 

“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson,” Jim thanked rather sheepishly.

 

“You’re welcome, James,” Mrs. Hudson smiled at Jim. “Honestly, I sometimes worry about you two …”

 

After she left the flat, Jim turned to the table. “Right! What’s next?”

 

“It says, ‘beat together butter, sugar, honey, and spices until fluffy.’”

 

Jim peeled the entire stick of butter from its paper wrapping and dropped it into the bowl. He used spoons to measure out the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves. He then turned to the kitchen counter to grab the cooking oil, and ripped off a piece of kitchen towel, onto which he poured a couple drops of the oil.

 

“My mother taught me this trick,” he explained to Sherlock as he rubbed the oil onto a spoon. “You see, if you oil a spoon, anything that’s on the spoon will just slide off nicely, so it’s easier to get every drop of honey, molasses, or whatever you need.”

 

“Brilliant,” Sherlock admired the now oiled spoon as Jim handed it to him. “I’ll keep this in mind the next time I need to-”

 

“I don’t want to know!” Jim silenced him by pressing a finger to Sherlock’s lips. Sherlock smiled evilly against Jim’s finger. “Don’t. Want. To. Know.” Jim insisted.

 

Sherlock took the bottle of honey and squirted a spoonful onto the spoon. The honey really did slide off the spoon smoothly into the bowl, and he was very much impressed by this ingenious trick. “Excellent!”

 

Jim rolled up his sleeves and reached for the wooden spoon. He stuck the spoon in the butter and started to mix.

 

Or rather, he tried to.

 

“God, is it supposed to be this stiff?” He asked as he tried to mix the butter and the other ingredients, but the butter simply stubbornly refused to submit to Jim’s efforts, and remained in a stick form and not a cream form.

 

Sherlock tried to remember how his mother made biscuits. “I remember my mother had an electric mixer …”

 

“Well, mine always used a wooden spoon, and she made it look so easy …”

 

Sherlock picked up the printed recipe again. “Jim, it says softened butter.”

 

“Is that a special kind of butter you buy at the shop?”

 

“I only remember there being unsalted and salted butter,” Sherlock furrowed his brows and tried to recall the different types of butter he’s seen at the shop. “That and reduced fat.”

 

“Well then what do they mean by softened butter?” Jim pressed at the butter with his finger. It was still quite hard, and cold.

 

Cold.

 

“... It needs to come to room temperature.” Jim concluded. “We should maybe leave it alone.”

 

“Or not.” Sherlock grabbed the bowl and put it in the microwave.

 

“No, Sherlock! _Softened_ butter, not melted butter!” Jim practically yelled as he rescued the butter from the microwave. To his relief, the butter hadn’t melted, since it had only been in the microwave for a handful of seconds.

 

He set the bowl on the table again, and tried to mix again with the spoon. This time, there was more of a give and the process came more easily. “Well that’s convenient,” Jim laughed. He continued to beat at the butter, sugar, spices, and honey, and the butter eventually broke out of its bar form and swirled around the bowl with streaks of spices, sugar, and honey in it.

 

“Whilst I’m mixing this butter, do you mind chopping up the hazelnuts?” Jim pointed at the bag of roasted hazelnuts.

 

“Not at all,” Sherlock opened the cupboard to look for the chopping board. When he found it, he laid it on the table and poured some of the hazelnuts on the board. “Do you reckon that this will be enough?” “Yeah.”

 

Sherlock took a knife from the knife block, and got to work at the hazelnuts.

 

Or, he tried to. “They’re rolling off the board!” Sherlock muttered in exasperation.

 

“Hold them still with your hand?”

 

“I fear I’ll cut myself.”

 

“Here, take this,” Jim handed Sherlock the mixing bowl. As Jim stared at the hazelnuts on the cutting board and the kitchen floor, Sherlock mixed the butter. It made a thwacking noise as it hit the walls of the bowl.

 

“Stop it.”

 

“Stop what?”

 

“The mixing. It’s distracting me.”

 

Sherlock set the bowl down on the table and in turn stared at Jim.

 

In the silence of the kitchen, Sherlock noticed how … _handsome_? Jim was when he was thinking. There weren’t any weird expressions that were screwing his facial features into amusing positions, no big dramatic eyes he used when he was trying to intimidate someone and stare them down … just … Jim. Soft black hair. Warm brown eyes under thin but defined eyebrows. Laughter lines around the edge of his eyes. A lovely, straight nose. A generous mouth with full, pink lips. A soft jaw that could also show determination, iron, and an edge when it wanted to …

 

Jim shook his head and slammed his left fist into his right palm. “I’ve got it!” He reached for an empty plastic bag that they had left on floor after they had emptied its substances on the table. He then _put the hazelnuts in the bag_ , and pulled a rolling pin out of another plastic bag.

 

“Here. Use this to bash them into tiny pieces.”

 

“ _God, I love you_.” Sherlock’s hands were on Jim’s face and he pressed his mouth onto Jim’s. Jim grinned and kissed him back. “You. Are. A. Genius.” Sherlock praised him between kisses. “Nonsense … anyone could have figured it out,” Jim felt a little embarrassed.

 

“No, really. James, you run an international criminal web as an occupation.”

 

“You’ve got a fair point there.” Jim kissed him one more time. “Come on. Let’s get back to work.”

 

They continued to work in silence. Jim’s butter thwacked loudly against the bowl, and Sherlock’s hazelnuts crunched loudly under the heavy pressure of the rolling pin. After a couple minutes, Sherlock peeked into the bag and decided that the hazelnuts were crushed enough. They roughly seemed the same size as they would be if Sherlock had chopped them instead.

 

Jim also seemed to be about done. “Does this looked creamed to you?” He pushed the bowl towards Sherlock. Sherlock mixed the butter with the spoon to see how uniformly blended the materials were. It seemed to be well incorporated - everything was the same colour and consistency. “Yes, I would say so,” he concluded.

 

“Great. Salt, hazelnuts, and flour in next.” Jim shook a pinch of salt into the mixture and Sherlock dumped all his nuts into the biscuit batter. Jim opened the flour and poured it into the measuring cup. He held the cup to his eyes to see if it was exactly the amount he needed, and Sherlock admired his devotion to scientific accuracy.

 

He then turned around and blew the flour into Sherlock’s face.

 

“ _JIM_ ,” Sherlock groaned as he screwed his eyes shut to avoid having any more flour fly into them. Jim sounded like he was dying from laughter, which bounced off the walls of their small kitchen. “ _JIM, WHY_.”

 

“Oh honey, you should see the _look_ on your face!” Jim wheezed between sobs of laughter.

 

Sherlock groped for the sink as the last of Jim’s guffaws and snorts died down. _And this is the man I have chosen to lay my affections upon_ …

 

After he dried his face with some kitchen towel, it seemed that he was successful in washing off the flour on his face, but parts of his hair were still powdered white. As Jim helped him dust the remaining flour from Sherlock’s hair, he wondered if he would actually see Sherlock’s hair to start to blanch white, to see him grow older …

 

“Was that really necessary?” Sherlock coughed as he shook the last of the flour from his head. “Well, it amused me greatly,” Jim grinned impishly at Sherlock. Sherlock frowned as he took the bowl, into which Jim had already dumped the flour. “I’m not letting you near the flour again.”

 

He started mixing the flour into the butter, but the butter just clumped together. So Sherlock speared some pieces of butter with the edge of the spoon, but it did not improve the situation; he was left with something that had a crumbly texture instead of a doughy one.

 

“Here, let me try this,” Jim took the bowl from Sherlock and stuck his hands in its contents. He tried to form a dough with his hands, but it still refused to clump together. He sighed in exasperation. “Well, this was more difficult than I expected.”

 

The oven beeped behind them. It was done preheating.

 

Something lit up inside of Sherlock’s mind. “Wait!”

 

“What?”

 

“I remember Mycroft talking about something like this when he last made biscuits! Or when he last made biscuits, that I know of …”

 

“Really?”

 

“Hold on, let me text him.”

 

_Jim and I are making biscuits. Dough is too crumbly, how did you make it come together? -SH_

 

The phone made a whooshing noise as Sherlock sent the message to Mycroft.

 

It wasn’t long before he got a response.

 

_I’m in the middle of a meeting of national importance, Sherlock._

 

_Please. -SH_

 

_And Moriarty, biscuits?_

 

_Please, Mycroft. -SH_

 

_You need more wet ingredients. I used milk with mine._

 

_Thank you! -SH_

 

_Don’t text me again._

 

“He says to use more wet ingredients,” Sherlock summarised, “He used milk last time. Do we still have some in the refrigerator?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Sherlock opened the fridge and stared at the milk. _But wouldn’t milk dull the kick of the spices?_ Sherlock reached for a couple of eggs instead.

 

“I thought you said milk,” Jim said as Sherlock briefly whisked the eggs with a fork and then poured them in the crumbly dough. “I thought milk might drown out the kick of the spices … though egg would have been better.” Jim shrugged. “Makes sense to me. Here,” he slid the bowl towards Sherlock.

 

Sherlock took the wooden spoon and started mixing the ingredients. The dough came together better, and turned quite doughy. He put his hands in the bowl to better combine all the elements. “This looks better.” “Yes, that looks right,” Jim agreed. “Let’s roll it out, shall we?”

 

Sherlock dusted the table with flour, shot a _don’t you dare_ look at Jim, then emptied the bowl on the table. With the rolling pin with which he brutally demolished the hazelnuts, he rolled out the dough to what he thought was a reasonable thickness.

 

“No, it’s too thick,” Jim shook his head. “It’ll be more chewy than crunchy if you roll it out that thick.”

 

“But I don’t mind chewy biscuits.”

 

“I prefer crunchy ones, though.”

 

Sherlock shrugged. “I don’t mind it either way.” He rolled the cookie dough out a little thinner.

 

However, it looked a little lumpy, since there were the hazelnuts in the dough. However, Sherlock figured that he couldn’t change that, so he just let it be.

 

“Okay, there’s one thing I need to tell you,” Jim said after he approved of what Sherlock had done.

 

“What?”

 

Jim whipped out a kitchen knife from behind his back. “I didn’t get cookie cutters.”

 

“Why not?” Sherlock watched as Jim scored the dough in grids to make quadrilateral biscuits. “You seem like someone who would appreciate the uniformity and neatness of a cookie cutter.”

 

“They’re not necessary. I’m doing just fine with a knife.”

 

“Jim … what happened?”

 

Jim set his knife down and threw his hands in the air. “Look, I thought it would be nice to have perfectly round biscuits. It would just look nice, you know. But then as I walk into shop, towards the baking aisle, I see some girl take the _last set_ of round cutters, and all that’s left is this set of human shaped ones.”

 

“Why didn’t you get the human ones, then?”

 

“Because then it would look like Christmas cookies!”

 

“That sounds fine to me.”

 

“But it’s not Christmas!”

 

“Jim …”

 

“Don’t you see? It’s not right!”

 

“Jim, it’s alright. You’re right, cutters are not necessary; they still look very neat with your knife work.”

 

“Thank you, dear.”

 

“... What happened to the girl?”

 

“Oh, her,” Jim took out some parchment paper and lined the baking tray with it. Sherlock picked up the uncooked biscuits from the table and laid them upon the baking tray. “Yeah … I may have fiddled a bit with her car.”

 

“Jim …”

 

“Listen, I just prod a hole in the gas tank, okay? It was nothing major.” He waved his hands dismissively in the air.

 

“Did anyone catch you?”

 

“No. But I want to go back …”

 

“Why?”

 

“Wouldn’t it be interesting to follow the oil trail? Then I could find where she lives …”

 

“Jim, no.”

 

“... And _take back those round cutters_.”

 

“ _Jim_.”

 

“Okay, fine!”

 

Sherlock put the cookies in the oven. “How long should they bake for?”

 

“The recipe says 8 minutes or so.”

 

“I suppose you set the timer the same way you set the temperature?”

 

“Makes sense.” Jim pressed the “8” button and then the “bake” button. The oven beeped, but didn’t do anything else. “I think it’s working.”

 

He turned around and slumped against the oven. “God, that was more tiring than I thought it would have been.” He rested his left forearm across his eyes. “I’m too tired to even be angry about the cookie cutters anymore …”

 

“Well, I suppose that Greg Ramsay’s advice does have some truth in it.”

 

“Gordon.” Jim grinned. “Yes, I suppose so …”

 

Sherlock sat down next to Jim. He reached out with his left hand, and twined his fingers together with Jim’s. “I’m glad things didn’t turn out differently on the roof.”

 

“What, three years ago?”

 

“Yes. Exactly three years ago.”

 

“Wait, really?” Jim removed his arm from his face and looked at Sherlock.

 

“Yes, today is the fourth of May.”

 

“Huh. Strange, how quickly time passes.”

 

“It could pass a little slower.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Sherlock leaned over and kissed Jim. “I just want to spend more time with you.”

 

“You already spend a lot of time with me.”

 

“All the time.”

 

“All the time? Don’t expect me to follow you around like John …”

 

“Nonsense. That wouldn’t make what we have … amusing, anymore.”

 

“Exactly. And neither would _you_ following _me_ around …”

 

“Right … but I want to be with you all the time. It’s strange to think of life without you. I almost don’t dare.”

 

“Don’t.” Their fingers laced together a little more tightly.

 

“It would feel strange and endless and empty. I don’t know how I would have gone the past three years without you. Strange to think that I almost did.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t be. I am.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Sherlock kissed him again. He reached out with his right hand and thread his fingers through Jim’s hair. Imagined that brilliant mind underneath that soft black hair. That wondrous mind with all those clever, clever schemes and sly tricks and whimsical ideas … endless mathematical equations … maps of infinite probabilities beyond our world … thoughts that glimmer like stars in a world dark with lack of inspiration and ingenuity …

 

Jim’s fingers curled around Sherlock’s shoulders and he pressed Sherlock to the ground. He buried his face in Sherlock’s neck and breathed him in. Tobacco, coffee, musky cologne, wool … his tongue traced along Sherlock’s carotid artery, and he realised how easy it was to die … to let that red liquid spurt out like a deer out of the forest, fast, stumbling, bewildered by the light … to let it trickle down the sides of his pale neck like a brook, then a tear drop. To _dam_ all that cleverness in the still lake of death, to _damn_ this wonderful existence from him, from Jim. No, he’d rather die … Jim licked his way to Sherlock’s mouth … _over my dead body_ …

 

Sherlock lifted his head to better kiss into Jim’s mouth. His arms wrapped around Jim’s torso, his hands splayed flat against his back. _God, if time could be suspended in one single moment_ …

 

The oven beeped.

 

Jim rolled off Sherlock. “They’re done! Let’s see how they turned out!”

 

“Right.” Sherlock sat up a bit too quickly and his eyes were dark from the sudden loss of blood to his brain. He opened the oven and put a finger on the tray-

 

“Gah!” The black immediately cleared from his eyes as he withdrew his burned finger lightning-quick from the oven.

 

“Jesus, Sherlock!” Jim grabbed Sherlock’s wrist and yanked him up from the floor. He turned on the cold water in the sink and stuck Sherlock’s finger under the running faucet. “Sherlock, why the hell did you do that?”

 

“Sat up too suddenly … wasn’t thinking properly …”

 

“God, I hope it’s not too bad,” Jim switched off the water to better inspect Sherlock’s finger. Luckily, it wasn’t too terrible … his finger had only been on the tray for a fraction of a second, but it was still an angry red.

 

Jim stuck Sherlock’s finger in his mouth and licked at the site of injury. It still felt hot. “Jim …” Jim turned Sherlock’s hand over and kissed the hurt finger. “Take care of yourself, Sherlock.” “Sorry, I just wasn’t thinking straight …” “Go put that on some ice, dear.”

 

As Sherlock went to the freezer to get out the ice cube tray, Jim found a dish towel and used that to remove the tray from the oven. He let it cool on the kitchen counter.

 

“Smells great, Jim.”

 

“Doesn’t it?” Jim smiled at the biscuits. “Mary will appreciate them.”

 

“If there’s any left over.”

 

Jim laughed. “What, are you going to eat them all?”

  
“No, I’ll share with you, and we’ve got to let Mrs. Hudson have some … and I’ll eat all the rest …”

 

“Now, don’t be _greedy_ , Sherlock.”

 

“... I suppose we could always make more. Mycroft would probably like some.”

 

“And then he’ll complain about us ruining his diet.”

 

“Pft. He’s always on a diet.”

 

Jim used a fork to lift a biscuit from the tray. He took it in his hands and broke it in half. There was a little give to it, but it snapped with a bright sound when Jim used more force. He put one half in his mouth and gave the other half to Sherlock.

 

“It’s quite good, though maybe a little burnt.”

 

Sherlock took a bite of the biscuit. “We probably should have removed them immediately from the tray. It’s only bitter on the bottom, so it seems like uneven heating was the source of the issue. Must be that it was the heat of the pan that led to the bottom of the biscuit to be overcooked.” He put the rest of the biscuit in his mouth. “It _is_ still very good, though. Mary would like these.”

 

Jim beamed at him. “Maybe we should try and make bread next time.”

 

Sherlock smiled back at him. “Yes, I would like that.”

 

“Now, what was the question you wanted to ask me?” Jim leaned against the refrigerator expectantly. “You completed your end of the bargain, so I’m holding up my end as well.”

 

Sherlock suddenly burst out laughing. “I’ve completely forgotten …”

 

\----

 

Mrs. Hudson had left to go visit a friend’s and have a nice chat. She was asking Mrs. Hudson about her new tenant, James, and Mrs. Hudson told her that he was an absolute angel, possibly better than the last one, John, because James was always polite and offered to make _Mrs. Hudson_ tea instead of the other way around …

 

She, of course, did not disclose to her friend that this new tenant just happens to control an international criminal web. There are just some things that you don’t tell people.

 

When she returned to her Baker Street apartment, she was glad to find that it was still intact, in one piece. She had worried about Sherlock and James burning down the apartment with their little experiment, but it seems like the two boys managed …

 

The door clicked as she twisted the key. She swung it open and stepped inside, then closed the door behind her.

 

It seemed like they had succeeded; the apartment smelled very nice indeed …

 

Mrs. Hudson smiled and began walking up the stairs to 221B to ask for some biscuits.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy May 4th, or Reichenbach/Sheriarty day, everyone!!  
> Actually wrote this fic in record time ... now, if only I could write my final papers as quickly, haha. You probably can't see but I'm dying on the inside from finals, and they haven't even started officially ...  
> Anyway, if you want the recipe to these biscuits, here they are: http://www.saveur.com/honey-spice-hazelnut-christmas-cookies-recipe  
> I actually made them over Christmas break, and I did find that it was a little difficult to bring the dough together. This might be because I don't have any electronic mixers or anything at home, and had to do to everything by hand. I did add the egg like Sherlock did, and it turned out pretty well!


End file.
